Every design for Breda

Did you know that the King of the Netherlands is also Baron of Breda? The title goes back to 1403, when Johanna of Polanen married Engelbert I of Nassau and brought the city into the House of Nassau, which later became the House of Orange-Nassau. Engelbert's sarcophagus still lies in the Grote Kerk. The city's name is older still, from brede Aa, the broad Aa, where that river meets the Mark.

What makes Breda unusual is the way it became a residence city. Once the family of Orange-Nassau was in place, other nobles followed and built grand houses in the old quarter, and the fortified town gained a political weight far beyond its size. Its walls and gates made it a prize of real strategic value, and it stayed in the barony until French revolutionary forces took it in 1795.

The Kasteel van Breda, the seat of the old lords and now home to the Royal Military Academy, sums all of this up in one building. That is a good reason to keep this map close: it holds a city where history did not stay behind glass.